Etacts (YC W10) releases first implementation of Gmail OAuth for IMAP | Hacker News Reader

Etacts (YC W10) releases first implementation of Gmail OAuth for IMAP

etacts.com

64 pointscominatchu26 comments

HN -- just want to let you know that we listened to your collective feedback on our Etacts launch post last week

Congratulations on the fast turnaround. I have the dubious distinction of writing the somewhat snarky top-voted thread on your previous post [1]. While I'd still like a better understand of etact's privacy features, not having to enter my Google password is good enough for now. I've signed up.

1. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1144606

A couple of comments/ideas/suggestions/feel free to ignore me/etc...

1. The lack of sign in button is confusing (this can be solved by simply renaming 'Go' to 'Login')

2. I've been waiting for etacts to finish importing whatever it is importing for almost 6 hours, and with no ETA / status bar / email update I'm inclined to feel that it's either not working, is heavily bottle necked, or something went wrong

3. Assuming the system is actually just busy doing all the processing on my emails, as an end user I would prefer it to do all this in the background, in a manner that is oblivious to me.

4. This means you could/should display 'incomplete' information, as long as it comes with the warning of 'We've still got XXXXXX emails to process' or something similar :)

I really just wanted to see what the interface/experience is like, regardless of exactly how much information you've processed (i.e. I'm ok with seeing a 'last contacted 3 years ago' message, even though I contacted them yesterday, because I realize you're still processing the information, but I want to see it now, not five hours from now :)

You do a great job at a very simple one-click login/signup, but having to wait forever to use this will (imo) lose a lot of people down the road who just "want to try it" (one of the best quotable comments I've heard a few weeks ago was from one of the founders of BackType -- "Your biggest enemy is the back button")

Anyway, I do look forward to using it asap :D

Thanks for the feedback. 1) Login button text is fixed. 2) Sorry, having some delays from too many users trying to sign up. We're working on speeding up the import process now. Sorry for the delay!

So I know I said no worries, but it's been >24 hours now, and it's still not done importing my contacts (I don't have THAT many ;)... Any ideas on what's going on?

(I might not get a response here since this is on the 3rd page now... but going to try anyway ;)

No worries on the delay, I know you're probably suffering growing pains, which, as we all know, are the best kinds of pains :P My comments were an attempt at looking at things from other users perspective :)

This is a big deal. I'm not going to share my Gmail password with anyone (except my wife, maybe) - which was too bad, because Etacts is a really useful service. Now I'm able to sign up without giving them my password. Hopefully other mail providers will do the same thing.

To be clear, you still need to give Etacts your password IF you use Google Apps (not simply gmail), right?

I just signed up with my domain account and I did not give them my password, although on their site they state that they need it for Google Apps accounts. Pretty odd.

It's still in the 'setup' state so I can't really do anything in their UI yet but it did let me login with my google apps email never the less.

If you set up a Google Account with your domain email address wouldn't that explain this?

I'd like to know too. My primary personal account is on Google Apps.

Has there been an announcement on general availability of Gmail OAuth? Found the techcrunch article about an expected announcement, but no announcement as of yet.

I'd actually be really interested to look at those API specs. Anyone?

This has been a long time coming: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=849586

First I've heard of etacts. Aside form their actual product, I'm more interested in them as a Ycombinator company, because I can't imagine what the growth/exit strategy for this type of company is. It seems to me that YC is looking for smart people that can crunch a bunch of data. In that sense, they are competing directly with hedge funds for talent.

So if you're smart, know some stats, and crunch a bunch of data for a few years, I'll bet you can then turn your collective brain power and IP and any problem you choose.

I can't imagine what the growth/exit strategy for this type of company is

Here's a related puzzle for you. In 1975 a company appears whose product is a Basic interpreter for a cheap microcomputer used by hobbyists. What is their exit strategy?

A BASIC interpreter? I wish people would work on real problems, and not toys.

Are you saying their strategy is puzzling or not? If not, then is it similar to MSFT? If it is puzzling, are you agreeing with the rest of my comment?

I'm not sure if you are pretending not to understand.

The point being made above is clearly that it is not possible to have an exit strategy at that point because the world & the product will change.

Okay, It's my naivete even mentioning the word exit. I'm sure nobody's at YC is interested in an exit anyhow. I was just trying to get a sense for whether this product had legs or whether the team and area of technology were the driving factor. However, now that I've heard the term: PCMS, I see the value. I didn't make the connection with CMS.

Now, if Etacts would just actually import my gmail...

I think this company has a HUGE growth potential. I know quite a few business men and women (especially in sales) who would pay a good amount monthly to have this as a tool at their disposal. If you need a concrete example, I'd highly recommend reading Keith Ferrazi's "Never Eat Alone", where he discusses how he manually enters all his contacts and reminders after each and every conversation to remind him to follow up and "ping" people. (Actually I'd say everyone should read that book in general)

Personal CRM is a hugely untapped market imo. CRM solutions exist in a thousand ways from salesforce and competitors, but they really don't deal with the "personal" aspect of relationships very well.

So in terms of growth I think they're fine. In terms of exits, I can't really speculate, but I think there's at least two really obvious ones (acquired by Google and integrated into Gmail / Google Apps / etc...., or acquired by salesforce or a related competitor)

I really agree with this. One of the main reason my interest was first piqued about Etacts was because of its potential to keep track of personal relationships. Obviously there's a lot of room for tools that really support the maintenance of social groups.

I'd love to have a souped up version of this that let me enter in that I met a certain friend for dinner this night or caught a movie with another on that night and helped me really stay on top of all that.

Are other people getting a revoked certificate error when accessing this with Chrome? Firefox doesn't complain, but Chrome 5.0 on Ubuntu is all over it.

FYI: Finding it odd that there is no "sign in" button.

Tried putting my e-mail address back-in on the home page and I get "need oauth token"

Is it just me, or is Etacts really dog-slow?

MixergyNotes on the founder of Etacts http://mixergynotes.com/howie-liu-etacts/

Thanks for posting relevant content to this discussion. I think I would appreciate it even more if your username and url weren't the same. It would make it feel more genuine and less spammy. Perhaps try participating in the discussions as well, not just posting links to your site (as of writing this you have 2 comments, both are links to your site).

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